1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a technology of providing services to users via networks.
2. Background Art
It has been possible to enjoy various categories of services provided on Web sites on the Internet over the recent years. Further, with sophisticated functions of mobile telephones and PHS(Personal Handyphone System), the users can receive the services from sites for mobile terminals without being limited to locations. These services are, e.g., a service for distributing music and voices desired by the user, a service for displaying e-mails, a fortune telling service, a service for displaying maps and so forth.
According to the prior arts, however, in the case of receiving the services described above, normally the user registers a membership to a service provider and can receive the service after the user has been authenticated as a registered member. There arise the following problems inherent in a system for providing the service to the registered member.
(1) The user who registered his or her membership was required to input a membership number, etc., each time the user had received the service. Accordingly, in the case of using the mobile telephone or PHS, it was not user-friendly, and the input operation was troublesome.
(2) It was impossible to prevent such a fraud use that the membership number of the same member had been shared among a plurality of users. Therefore, the service provider could not completely collect membership fees that would otherwise have been collected from the plurality of members. Further, this type of fraud use made it impossible to ensure information security.
(3) There has been a service in which the user operates the mobile telephone in accordance with a voice guidance transmitted from a data center; however, the voice guidance was not clear to understand, and the operation was not user-friendly.
It is an object of the present invention, which was devised in view of the problems inherent in the prior art, to simultaneously attain ensuring information security and an enhancement of usability in providing services to mobile terminals.
To accomplish the above object, the present invention adopts the following means.
Namely, a service system for providing a service to a user according to the present invention comprises an application accept unit (4) for accepting an application for registration from a terminal (1) together with a telephone number of the terminal (1), a recording module (5) for recording the telephone number as an application telephone number, a telephone call receiving unit (6) for receiving a telephone call, a comparing unit (6) for comparing a caller telephone number of the received telephone call with the application telephone number, and a registration module (5) for registering, when the caller telephone number is coincident with the application telephone number, the application telephone number as a registered telephone number.
The user may, after inputting the telephone number of the user""s own terminal (1), telephone the telephone call receiving unit (6). The telephone call receiving unit (6) obtains the telephone number of the terminal (1) by utilizing, for example, a caller telephone number announce service of a telephone company. With this scheme, the service system recognizes a receipt of the telephone call from the user who made an application. As a result, the registration module (5) registers this telephone number formally as a registered telephone number.
Note that the recording module (5) and the registration module (5) may be set in the form of, e.g., different tables within the same database system and may also be actualized in different database systems. The terminal (1) of the user is, for instance, a mobile telephone, PHS, a fixed telephone, and so on. Further, the caller telephone number may also be referred to as a call originator telephone number.
Preferably, the service system further comprises a request accept unit (4) for accepting a service providing request given from the terminal (1), and a service providing unit (6) for providing, when the caller telephone number of the telephone call received by the telephone call receiving unit (6) after accepting the request is coincident with the registered telephone number of the terminal (1), the service requested.
The user specifies a category of the service, then requests the request accept unit (4) to provide the service and, thereafter, may telephone the telephone call receiving unit (6). The telephone call receiving unit (6) obtains the telephone number of the user by utilizing, e.g., a caller telephone number announce service of a telephone company. With this scheme, the service system recognizes a receipt of the telephone call from the user who made an application. As a result, the service system provides the service requested.
Preferably, the service is a service for providing sound or voices to the terminal (1).
Preferably, the service system further comprises an identifying information obtaining unit for obtaining terminal identifying information for identifying the terminal (1), wherein the recording module (5) records the application telephone number together with the terminal identifying information, and the registration module (5) registers the registered telephone number together with the terminal identifying information.
Preferably, the service system further comprises a request recording module (5) for recording a service providing request given from the terminal (1), wherein the request accept unit (4) obtains from the identifying information obtaining unit the terminal identifying information of the terminal making the service providing request, obtains the registered telephone number of the terminal (1) from the registration module (5) on the basis of the terminal identifying information, and makes the request recording module record the request given from the terminal together with the registered telephone number, and the service providing unit (6) provides the requested service when the caller telephone number of the call received by the telephone call receiving unit (6) is coincident with any one of the registered telephone numbers recorded on the request recording module (5).
According to the present service system, the terminal identifying information may be used as a membership number of the user. The identifying information obtaining unit may simply obtain this membership number without inputting by the user. Therefore, the user has no necessity of inputting the membership number when applying for a registration and making a service providing request.
Further, a service method of providing a service to a user according to the present invention comprises accepting an application for registration from a terminal (1) together with a telephone number of the terminal, recording the telephone number as an application telephone number, receiving a telephone call, comparing a caller telephone number of the received telephone call with the application telephone number, and registering, when the caller telephone number is coincident with the application telephone number, the application telephone number as a registered telephone number.
Note that this service method can be actualized by making a computer execute the respective steps described above. Further, according to the present invention, there is provided a program for making the computer actualize any of the functions described above. Moreover, according to the present invention, there is provided a readable-by-computer recording medium recorded with such a program.
Herein, the readable-by-computer recording medium embraces recording mediums capable of storing information such as data, programs, etc. electrically, magnetically, optically and mechanically or by chemical action, which can be all read by the computer. What is demountable out of the computer among those recording mediums may be, e.g., a flexible disk, a magneto-optic disk, a CD-ROM, a CD-R/W, a DVD, a DAT, an 8 mm tape, a memory card, etc.
Further, a hard disk, a ROM (Read Only Memory) and so on are given as fixed type recording mediums within the computer.
As explained above, according to the present invention, the user can easily be surely authenticated and registered as a service receiver. Further, the user can be easily authenticated with security when providing the service, and can be provided with the service.
Moreover, there exists only one mobile terminal 1 having the same telephone number, and hence, in the system for registering the membership and so forth, it is possible to reduce fraud use such as sharing a membership number among a plurality of members and so on. When utilizing the service, a usability and an operability for the user are improved.